1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that is connectable to a WAN (wide area network) and a LAN (local area network) and capable of conducting a bidirectional communication with each terminal in those networks, and a program product used in the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A content delivery system is known which sends content data such as image data and audio data stored in a content server in a WAN to a terminal in a LAN via a gateway apparatus (refer to JP-A-2001-236288).
In recent years, home electrical appliances have been networked and considerable variations have come to exist in the capabilities of terminals in a LAN. JP-A-2001-236288 discloses a content delivery system in which capabilities of terminals that receive content data are determined and content data that is suitable for the capabilities is delivered.
More specifically, every time the gateway apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2001-236288 receives a content request from a LAN terminal, the gateway apparatus determines a content server by analyzing the content request and informs the content server of capabilities of the terminal that has transmitted the content request, such as a screen size, the number of pixels, the number of colors, presence/absence of audio, a version of JAVA (registered trademark), and performance.
Upon receiving a notice of capabilities from the gateway apparatus, the content server informs the gateway apparatus of reception of the notice of capabilities by sending an acknowledgment signal (ACK) to the gateway apparatus. In response to the content request sent from the gateway apparatus, the content server selects content data suitable for the capabilities among content data that have been identified based on the content request, and sends the selected content data to the gateway apparatus.
Therefore, the content data that has been sent from the content server and is suitable for the LAN terminal is sent from the gateway apparatus to the terminal.
However, in the conventional content delivery system, content data that are not suitable for terminal capabilities are not sent from the content server and hence a user at the LAN terminal cannot acquire information contained in such content data.